When the reports of a Chinese city under lockdown surfaced just a few weeks ago, no one could have prophesied what was in store for the international industry and business.
Shifting to the current scenario, the novel coronavirus aka COVID 19 has afflicted more than 200 nations across the globe, leaving the world crippled with continuous deaths and excessively rapid spread. The Outcome? In addition to mass casualties, the pandemic has brought the business around the world to a complete halt – and, the event management sector is also heavily affected with this development.
True to the adage “adversity is the mother of creation” the world order has risen to respond to the unprecedented situation by taking the support of technology for addressing two significant hurdles. The first is alleviating the damages caused by the outbreak and, second, matching stakeholders’ event management demands while respecting social distancing rules.
Here are a few decisive means through which the industry is gearing up to tackle the challenges and be future-ready.
Going Virtual
Over the span of the past few weeks or so, many conventions and business meetings have undergone a virtual facelift. At the same time, a leading event management company such as Bold Marketing is focused on improvising their services and going virtual. The conventional set-up of physical events is slowly making a shift towards a virtual venue by making use of cloud-hosted live streaming and webinar solutions— each tailored to suit specific event requirements. The virtual broadcast mechanism has arisen as an efficient alternative in the present world order for event-planners as well as the participants who intend to be the part of the engagement, but wouldn’t dare to compromise the safety of their neighbours or their own.
The online environment removes territorial barriers for consumers, such as people can communicate in real-time with each other from any part of the world; they also get to take teaching lessons while sitting in any part of the globe. Organizers may then use the right mix of technologies to pull-off virtual activities while at the same time reaching out to a more extensive audience base than they would ever have in a conventional physical environment. In addition, conventions and webinars are going the live streaming way, the costs associated with regular events such as the renting of premises, workforce and catering services, etc. are also omitted in one go. Therefore the model of the virtual meetings is quite cost-effective too.
Exploring Hybrid possibilities
At some point of time in the near future and with the arrival of necessary medication, we hope to conquer the virus. With this thought in mind, organizers are also actively exploring the idea of going hybrid by blending physical and virtual elements for event execution. This model makes it possible for a significant number of non-local participants to engage remotely in the event that might be taking place at a far off physical venue.
Apart from relying on solely virtual meeting options, this creative and balanced approach can provide additional benefits for event organizers in the form of increased revenues and employment sustenance.
